by Alex Cugia
“Well, you certainly can’t take her, not right now anyway!" Bernhard looked startled. He'd known vaguely of Klaus's interest but hadn't taken it very seriously. "You’ve not said anything to her, have you? No hints, no pillow talk?”
“I’ve said nothing. What do you take me for?" Klaus was indignant. He sat down. "Why are you looking at me like that. Anyway, why would it matter? Ulrike knows all about it and she’s coming with us. You've not got a girlfriend, Bernhard, but Ingrid and I are getting close. Maybe I’d like to take her. Maybe she’d want to come. What would be wrong with that?”
Bernhard glanced at Kai. “You know where her father works, don’t you? Normannenstrasse. He’s head of the division that controls this sector." He walked over and stood directly in front of Klaus, leaned close as Klaus stood up. "I like you, Klaus, I do, but if I find out you’ve said a word to Ingrid, dropped a hint, anything, anything at all, I’ll break your fucking neck. Don’t think I won’t. That heavy machinery I work can cause accidents if I get a bit careless. And if Kai and I get picked up first, well, I’ve some pretty good mates on the site.” He laughed. “We’re the Stasi of the heavy plant operators, we know exactly what’s going on and how to deal with it.”
He made a shudder at Klaus and growled theatrically in his face. “We’re ruthless!”
He threw an arm around Klaus’s shoulder. “Look Klaus, no cunt’s worth it. Send for her later if you want. OK, let’s get working. I’ll start digging and you fill the bags. How about getting us some coffee, Kai?”
Working in shifts as before they made good progress, opening up over a metre of the tunnel by late Sunday evening. Kai, smaller and slighter than the others and with a desk job, found it harder. By the time they stopped his muscles were aching, he was drenched with sweat and it was with difficulty that he was able to stand upright. He groaned and tried to stretch.
“Ugh! I don’t think I can survive another fortnight, maybe more even, of this! You’ll have to carry me through the tunnel when we finish, I think. But, seriously, guys, I’m excited about it. We’ve only got evenings now till next weekend but I’m going to take a day off, maybe Wednesday, say I’m sick or something. How about one of you doing the same?”
“I guess I could.” said Bernhard. “Not Wednesday, though. Maybe Friday when we’re less busy, or Thursday. I’ll sort something out, get one of my mates to cover. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
All the bags had been filled by midday and they’d been forced to start building a spoil heap of excavated earth in a corner of the room. Bernhard walked over and looked at the mound, then dropped into the hole and looked over the tunnel start.
“I don’t like this, though. We’re going to run out of space well before the end. We can reduce the tunnel dimensions a bit, maybe. A metre 75 height is nice but we could get away with a metre, I think, maybe a metre 20, and, what, maybe three quarters wide, less if we can stand it. Can’t not doavoid the shoring up either. I don’t fancy being buried by a roof fall.”
“Well, we’ve tried carrying the stuff out to the van and that’s hopeless.” said Klaus. “That woman caretaker was watching me when I carried the bags out and when I did the second lot she was on to me, asking what I was up to. Told her I was helping you clear out old junk, Kai, but she’s not going to believe that, day after day. Something will go wrong and we’ll be caught.”
“Room nine is empty.” said Kai suddenly. “I’m sure of it. That’s three doors down the corridor from this one. It’s the old couple on the floor below me. They find it hard enough getting up three flights to their apartment so they almost never go out, let alone down here. I know them a bit and they’re OK so I’ll find out what the score is. That one's got a padlock, not a mortice, so that's good. Bernhard, can you get some bolt cutters and a new padlock and we’ll start moving the stuff in there.”
They dug on through the following week starting each evening at seven and putting in four and sometime even five or more hours. On the Friday both Kai and Bernhard called in sick to their work and by the end of the evening they’d hit the ten metre mark. They had been forced to change direction twice, once because of a water pipe exactly in their path which forced them downwards another half metre, and then because of a huge slab of rock too big and hard to break through and which seemed endless as they dug round it. Kai and Bernhard had bickered about whether to go left or right. They’d tossed a coin, dug to their right for a couple of metres without success, bickered again, and Bernhard had finally broken through by going a metre to the left. At least, the consoled themselves, they now had a large, roomy chamber about half way along, useful for storing tools and bags.
But now it was getting increasingly difficult. There was little air in the tunnel and hardly any room to manoeuvre. Wary about Frau Schwinewitz’s snooping they’d decided to wait to the Saturday morning to shift as much soil as they could into the neighbouring room. Till then they had no option but to pile up the excavated earth in the room and they’d already filled over half the cellar, floor to ceiling. Klaus had stolen a further twenty bags and the forty remaining, filled to bursting, sat in one corner, piled high on themselves in a shaky edifice which made everyone near it wary and which they resented because of the time spent juggling earth and bags around to fit in the small space.
On one occasion Kai had grown dizzy and collapsed as he’d crawled back and might well have suffocated had Bernhard, alarmed that he’d missed his shift change, not gone looking for him and dragged him out. They’d discussed trying to buy breathing equipment but in the end settled for installing a long plastic pipe back to the cellar which they could grab and get fairly fresh air through it if they began to feel faint.
One evening they returned to find that there had been a minor fall as part of the roof had collapsed and they’d then had to waste more time and space shoring up better the sides and building roof supports for a three metre stretch. Kai tried not to think about the many tonnes of material directly overhead and about what would happened if the roof gave way while anyone was under it.. Most of the time they’d had to work in the dark or using a small lantern battery torch as the heat from the electric lamp they’d brought quickly became intolerable.
Klaus had been becoming more and more withdrawn as he worked, grunting in response to comments and ignoring the banter of the others as they dealt with the various problems that kept occurring. On Saturday Kai repeated his monitoring of a fortnight earlier, looking down from the top floor to watch for Frau Schwinewitz’s departure to her debriefing meeting. Ten minutes after she’d left Bernhard snapped off the existing padlock on the room three doors away and hung on the staple a second hand lock resembling the original. They crowded into the room, relieved to find it empty.
“Hey, it’s just like mine. A few trips shifting that earth over and it’ll be even more like mine! I’m going to paint the floor with a drawing of a jagged concrete hole and a tunnel entrance. Make me feel at home. What do you think, guys?”
Klaus grunted and returned a few moments later, dragging one of the sacks behind him, then emptied it in the far corner. Bernhard carried one from one room to the other and did the same but when Kai attempted it he could only drag the sack, spilling earth on to the corridor floor as he went and treading and scuffing it into the surface.
“Kai, get a brush and a cloth, maybe some water too, to clean all this up. Your snooping caretaker’s going to go apeshit if she finds all this earth around. She'll suspect something and start watching you closely. We can’t risk that. Go on. Klaus and I’ll carry the bags over and empty them. You can stay in the room and fill them up for us.”
At midday, their limbs aching and their faces and hands streaked with dirt, they took a break, looking with satisfaction at the greatly reduced pile of dirt in the tunnel room. Kai brought down coffee, a pail of water and some old cloths to clean themselves up when they’d finished.
“When does Schwinesnitch usually get back?” Bernhard asked.
“Half two, two m
aybe, something like that. Once she got back at one but mostly it’s been later. We’re safe for another half hour at least, I’d say, maybe another half hour after that. We should just about clear it completely in that time. I’ll go up to the hall with the alarm device at one, though, to be safe.”
Klaus stood, drained his coffee, dragged a bag over the floor, hoisted it on to his shoulder as he opened the door, stepped into the corridor and moments later burst back in and slid the bolt across.
“She’s back! I saw her walking down that side corridor across from the other room. A few seconds earlier and I'd have bumped into her. Jesus! Or she might have seen me going in there with the dirt. Shit! We left it unlocked, didn’t we? What if she notices that? Opens the door? We’re finished!”
“That corridor’s where her own basement room is.” Kai said. “She’s just putting something away or collecting something. I’ll sneak out and if she’s not about I’ll fix the padlock And if she is, well, she knows me anyway, knows I do stuff down here, maybe I can ask her about something, get her upstairs again and one of you guys can lock it.”
He slid back the bolt but just as he was about to ease open the door he heard soft footsteps approaching so he tapped the bolt silently back into place instead. Scarcely breathing the three men stood in the intense silence as the footsteps halted outside. The door handle turned and the door flexed slightly and gave a creak before the handle moved back again. After another period of silence the footsteps moved away and became fainter. In a moment there was the familiar creak of the door at the foot of the basement stairs opening and then closing again. They looked at each other and Kai shook his head slightly and put his finger to his mouth. Five minutes later the stair door creaked again, this time with a longer pause before the closing creak and the slight noise of footsteps followed.
“That’s what she does, opens the door and then closes it again and if you go out you’ll find her still snooping around." He shivered. "But I think she’s really gone up now. I’d better go and check.” He put his finger to his lips. "Not a sound."
In a few moments he returned. “She’s gone. I put the other padlock back on. Let’s hope she didn’t notice anything. There’s a fair bit of dirt in the corridor, though. She’ll wonder about that so I’d better think up some story in case she says anything. Best get digging!stop for today.” He turned on the music.
“Look, guys. I can’t take this any more.” Klaus looked at Kai and then at Bernhard. “I’m sorry, I just can’t. You know I’ve been leery about it for the past week or so. And then I keep thinking of Ingrid and how I’ll feel if she’s still here and I’m over there. I want to get out. Of course I do. But I want it to be with her. I want to be with her and with all this stuff going on we’re going to get caught, I’m sure of it. If that happens I’ll be dead or in jail and I’ll never see her again. I’m sorry to let you down, guys, but I’m out of here.” He looked warily at Bernhard. “And I promise, I’m going to forget everything we’ve done or you’re doing. Don’t worry about that. I promise you. I wish I could come with you - but I just can’t.” He held out his hand and after a moment’s hesitation Bernhard took it and they embraced, Kai following.
Chapter 4
Thursday September 14 1989
ON the next Thursday Thomas crossed early and got to the German History Museum well before it closed for the day. He’d no intention of looking round - he’d visited it once, shortly after arriving in Berlin, and once was more than enough for these sorts of turgid fairytales, he thought - but he wanted to make sure that Bettina didn’t leave early before he arrived. He sat on a low wall across the street where he could keep both the main entrance, and more particularly the side entrance, in view.
The weather had changed and an icy cold wind blew in from the east. A dense blanket of cloud covered the sky. In a nearby garden someone had lit a bonfire and the smell of apple wood and leaves reminded him of his parents’ house in Frankfurt in autumn weekends when his father was alive. Although he was well wrapped up in a thick coat and scarf the wind still got to him and periodically he rose to stamp his feet and walk about a little on the pavement. Since they’d met nearly a week earlier he hadn’t been able to get Bettina out of his mind. He'd spent the wait till he could see her again in thinking about her and rehearsing clever things to say when they met, things he knew he would nevertheless probably never say. He felt almost as edgy and apprehensive as when he’d crossed the previous week although then the penalties for failing would have been far more severe. He pictured her lying next to him, smiling up at him as he leant on his elbow, pulling him down to kiss him.
Then suddenly she was there. The museum had not long closed and staff were streaming out of the side door and there she was, on her own and among the stragglers. She looked beautiful and stylish, wearing a well fitting black leather jacket which set off her figure and complemented her blonde hair, her appearance bringing him to an ache of longing. He got up and moved towards her, waving a little self-consciously when he got closer.
“Oh, you. Thomas isn’t it?, Thomas something or other. Can’t you afford phones in the West now?”
“Wundart.” He was pleased she’d recognised and remembered him.
“I tried calling ... ” he said, embarrassed. “Well, actually, no, I didn’t. I was afraid you might tell me not to show up, that you were busy or something. Shall we get some hot chocolate or coffee somewhere? It’s freezing, total brass monkey weather.”
They walked down a nearby side street and entered a small, nondescript shop with a sawdust strewn floor. The walls were plain and bare. A large black dog was dozing in a corner, close to the single tiny radiator. Wafts of aromatic steam, rich and chocolaty, came from behind a door to the left. The old woman behind the counter greeted Bettina with evident pleasure and broke into a flood of comment in a broad Sachsen accent which Thomas had difficulty in following. He thought he picked up a query about Bettina’s ‘new young man, handsome, eh?' and then something like 'But what about where it matters?’ with the lascivious cackle which followed drowning Bettina’s reply. They sat at one of the two tables in the back room.
“I used to spend a lot of time here” Bettina said “reading, but also just talking, discussing things with other students, arguing. Setting the world to rights.” She smiled and looked round the room.
“So how was your visit to the museum?” she asked. “What did you think of the new exhibit? I mean the space given over to the history of our glorious leader. Right there in the entrance hall. How remarkable that he joined the Spartacus League when he was ten, the full Party at 17 and that he was one of the first members of the SED when it was formed? What commitment! What deep understanding of the proletarian struggle!”
There was a long silence while Thomas thought frantically of what comment he might make. Was she serious? Should he praise the exhibition, laugh at it, say he’d missed it? But how he could he miss something apparently so obvious? He caught her eye and that decided him.
“An exhibition devoted to Honecker’s history could put the story of the DDR into proper perspective.” he said, leaning back in his chair, waiting.
She laughed. “So you didn’t visit the museum! Well, in your position I don’t suppose I would have done either.” She laughed again and then, suddenly, was serious. “But if you’d pretended, said what a fine exhibition it was perhaps, we’d have had our chocolate but we would never have met again.” She looked down at the table and then looked levelly at him. “I’m glad that’s not the case.”
“Are you from Berlin?”
“Dresden. Have you been there?”
“Never. You’d need a special permit and I’ve never arranged one. I hear it’s very beautiful.”
“It was. Still is in parts. It was a wonderful, beautiful, old city, with narrow streets and some marvellous Baroque and Renaissance architecture. But you need to look at paintings and old photographs to get a proper understanding of what it was like, how wonderful it was.”
<
br /> Her tone was bitter and Thomas nodded silently. Almost the entire historic centre of what had been known as the Florence of Germany had vanished in February 1945, destroyed in the firestorm which the Allied bombing had intentionally created, a raid which aroused strong emotions on all sides.
“Is your family still there? How many are you?”
“My mother moved to Leipzig and there’s now only her and Paul, that’s my younger brother. He’s 22, lives about half way between Dresden and Berlin. He’s had some troubles and life isn’t easy for him right now. But what about you? Tell me ... ”
She was interrupted by the arrival of two steaming cups of hot chocolate, ‘molten lava’ as they were popularly named in the shop. Bettina insisted on paying.
“Thank you. But that means dinner’s on me. I hope that’s OK, that you’re free. I know of a place not far from here. It’s maybe not as, umm, distinctive, as this one but the food’s very good and I’ve got to know them a bit there, business reasons, and, well, I’d like ... ” He trailed off and they drank their chocolate in silence.
Thirty minutes later they were at the Ephraim Palais, its entrance decorated with stucco angels and gilded leaves lit by the ornate chandeliers and reflected in the huge Baroque mirrors framed in red and gold gesso which lined the hallway. The dominant dull red of the large oriental carpet subtly complemented the dark green marble which it partially hid.
“Good evening Madame. It’s a pleasure to see you again Mr Wundart. The table in the alcove is ready for you.”
As the waiter took their coats, led the way and helped them to their seats Thomas sensed Bettina’s resistance and mounting anger. He looked warily at her over the spotless linen tablecloth as the waiter, having signalled someone across the room, turned back to them.
